The farce of the Catholic “confessional”: “You do not have to talk about sex in the confessional”

Confess to God, not to man

… “Celibate men are not exactly natural conversation partners…”

Back in the day, I knew of a priest who sat in the confessional and took about a maximum of five minutes hearing a confession, most likely lasting just two or three minutes. His penance for all penitents was the same regardless of the severity of their transgressions against the Catholic Church:  “five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys, and a act of contrition.”

And he would slam shut the window before the penitent even started the act of contrition. 

I later heard of a joker who went in and said that he had committed a murder just to gauge the reaction of the priest. 

Still the same penance. 

It was at that time that I realized the farce of the Catholic confession process. 

“Why not confess directly to God?” I asked myself.

The nun whom I asked about that was puzzled by my question. “That’s not the way we Catholics do it.”

And that is why I — and now the vast majority of Catholics — started confessing directly to God, though I waited until after I was confirmed and did not need to go through the silly process of their “confessional“ to do so.

And that is why I found this article to be so honest, and refreshing, from a Catholic priest. 

“Sex and Confession”

Who knows less about advising people about sex that celibate Catholic priests? 

Rev. Jim McDermott, S.J., is a Catholic priest who is an editor with the National Catholic Reporter. While the focus of his article was on the difficulty of talking about sexual relations or sexual matters in the confessional, it also goes to the root problem of confession to another human being and the ramifications of that,

In my training class on hearing confessions, we did case studies that hit all ten commandments, the seven deadly sins and, occasionally, the plotlines of major movies …

We talked about adultery, family conflicts, murder, work. But you know what we did not talk about much? Sex.

It is no surprise, really. A lot of people clam up when conversation turns even slightly toward intercourse. 

Celibate men are not exactly natural conversation partners for discussions of the day-to-day realities and struggles of a sexual life. Ask me anything about living with 40 other celibate men, or trying to be obedient, or loneliness. But treating your partner of 20 years like an object for your gratification, or frustration with a partner who can’t have sex, or being with someone for the first time and not being your best self in some way? Can I get back to you?

Jim McDermott, “Sex and Confession: 5 helpful guidelines,” National Catholic Reporter, October 21, 2021

Supposedly, people cannot take communion unless they have been regularly confessing their sins. However, pre Covid, almost everyone who attends mass also takes communion. 

You mean to tell me that all of these people regularly go to confession and are forgiven for their sins?

In reality, the ones who do go are like me and go to God, not to a human priest. Most, I would surmise, do not even bother to do that. 

That is of concern to some “traditional” Catholics.

“Whatever happened to confession?”

Some people think that the truth is more about people feeling less guilt about inappropriate behavior. 

There is some truth to that. For instance, American bishops supported a thrice-married man who has been accused of sexual improprieties with dozens of women, who never asked for forgiveness for his sins, who never attends a church, and who follows no religion over a devout Catholic who takes the sacraments each week. 

Yet, these bishops have expressed no guilt for such a transgression. 

While frequent confession became a thing of the past, Catholics continued to receive Communion. 

A traditionally minded Catholic response was that people treated Communion lightly, and their moral consciences were badly distorted. Those on the other end of the spectrum saw Communion itself as the healing remedy. It did not require confession to prepare for it.

The question remains alive today, perhaps even more so after a year of living through the Covid-19 pandemic. But today it might be rephrased as two different questions for two different audiences: 

“How shall one go to confession now?” and “Why go to confession at all?” 

Peter Fink, “Whatever happened to confession? And is it time to go back?” 

America Magazine, April 30, 2021

Blames Vatican II, not the church

Fink places the fault for people not going to confession in the wrong place, but he is right about one thing,

Let me start with a conviction I have had for a long time. By and large, Catholics have not been trained to believe in God. Catholics have been trained to believe in the church and its teaching. 

The typical Catholic moral stance comes down to this: “The church told me to do this, and I didn’t; the church told me not to do this, and I did.” It is a moral stance based on obedience. It rarely goes deeper than that. Yet when I hear these two questions, “how to” and “why,” I see an invitation to move beyond this level of moral awareness.

Peter Fink, America, April 30, 2021

“Catholics are not trained to believe in God?” That is absolutely true. That is why the Catholics and so many other Christians read the Old Testament, which is the words of prophets, instead of the New, which is the words of Jesus Christ. 

And this guy blames Vatican II for people not confessing to men?

The words of Jesus make so many Catholics uncomfortable. So, when the nun said to me that confessing to a priest was the way the church did it, she was expressing the belief that the church is more important than God or Jesus Christ. 

Not in so many words, but indeed. 

Woman humiliated in confession about sex

A woman who attempted to avoid her home confessor made a horrible mistake in Charlotte, N.C. when she confessed a sexual sin to a priest there. She then let loose on Twitter, not about the sin, but about the humiliating experience,

[I will omit the name]

I just had the worst confession ever. I confessed a sexual sin, something I haven’t confessed in a long time, and the priest told me asked me if I was a toy. I haven’t had to confess this in a long time, so I tried to explain that it was infrequent.

… Then he asked me if I was raped and I told him, respectfully, that the question was inappropriate. He hounded me until I told him no, to which he immediately replied I needed to take ownership of my role. Which…I thought I was doing by going to confession.

… Some updates:

1. I don’t know the priest’s name. I’m out of town and went to St. Patrick’s in Charlotte. The priest in the confessional is not the same priest who gave the homily.

2. I’m going to report the experience

3. PLEASE stop telling me to stop going to confession.

… I’m very sorry to the good priests hurt by bad priests. The ones I follow on here have given me very good spiritual direction. One of my favorite confessors in Nashville helped me get to therapy when I confessed something very sensitive to me. Please be kind.

Twitter

And you want to know why I think confession is a farce as practice in the church?

The truth is that what this woman confessed was probably not a sin in the eyes of God, only in the eyes of the church ruled by celibate men who transfer pedophiles from place to place. 

So, going back to the start, you do not have to talk about sex in the confessional — or about anything else. 

Just talk to God.